writing blogue

main @traumataako

[gunvolt]

im going to have a stroke

[prideling]

Instead try… Person A: You know… the thing Person B: The “thing”? Person A: Yeah, the thing with the little-! *mutters under their breath* Como es que se llama esa mierda… THE FISHING ROD

[artykyn]

As someone with multiple bilingual friends where English is not the first language, may I present to you a list of actual incidents I have witnessed:

Forgot a word in Spanish, while speaking Spanish to me, but remembered it in English. Became weirdly quiet as they seemed to lose their entire sense of identity.

Used a literal translation of a Russian idiomatic expression while speaking English. He actually does this quite regularly, because he somehow genuinely forgets which idioms belong to which language. It usually takes a minute of everyone staring at him in confused silence before he says “….Ah….. that must be a Russian one then….”

Had to count backwards for something. Could not count backwards in English. Counted backwards in French under her breath until she got to the number she needed, and then translated it into English.

Meant to inform her (French) parents that bread in America is baked with a lot of preservatives. Her brain was still halfway in English Mode so she used the word “préservatifes.” Ended up shocking her parents with the knowledge that apparently, bread in America is full of condoms.

Defined a slang term for me……. with another slang term. In the same language. Which I do not speak.

Was talking to both me and his mother in English when his mother had to revert to Russian to ask him a question about a word. He said “I don’t know” and turned to me and asked “Is there an English equivalent for Нумизматический?” and it took him a solid minute to realize there was no way I would be able to answer that. Meanwhile his mom quietly chuckled behind his back.

Said an expression in English but with Spanish grammar, which turned “How stressful!” into “What stressing!”

Bilingual characters are great but if you’re going to use a linguistic blunder, you have to really understand what they actually blunder over. And it’s usually 10x funnier than “Ooops it’s hard to switch back.”

[cassnovawrites]

My grandmother (a native German speaker) picked up the habit of saying the entirely made up phrase “hiya callit” which I’ve finally discovered means “how do you call it,” or more logically “what’s the word.”

[petals42]

Wait, wait wait. What is this intriguing Publish to AO3 Google Doc? I write all my stuff in Google Drive, but I agonize through fixing the formatting when I paste it from there into AO3. Have I been missing something magical?

THIS IS ABOUT TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE.

So, on the AO3 “Cool Stuff” FAQ, there is a link to this document under “Posting and Managing Works.”

THIS IS THE BEST DOCUMENT IN ALL OF HISTORY. Basically, it has a script in it that has a “Post to AO3″ option and it will go in and fill in ALL the HTML you need - italics, bold, paragraph breaks, you name it!

It has directions in it for how to use it, but it’s real simple. You just always chose “Make a Copy” when you start writing to make a new document that you can then re-name. Change the language to American English (or whatever language you use) and type away. Then right before you post, click the button, get all the code in there, copy, paste, AND POST. 

It is literally so, so glorious and I want to tell everyone. 

(Also, the AO3 Cool FAQ page has some other cool stuff too!)

[lemonsharks]

REBLOG TO SAVE A LIFE

[glorious-spoon]

I use this ALL THE TIME, it is seriously the best thing ever. I just keep a copy in my GDocs folder and c/p fic text into it.

[worldwithinworld]

When you are writing a story and refer to a character by a physical trait, occupation, age, or any other attribute, rather than that character’s name, you are bringing the reader’s attention to that particular attribute. That can be used quite effectively to help your reader to focus on key details with just a few words. However, if the fact that the character is “the blond,” “the magician,” “the older woman,” etc. is not relevant to that moment in the story, this will only distract the reader from the purpose of the scene. 

If your only reason for referring to a character this way is to avoid using his or her name or a pronoun too much, don’t do it. You’re fixing a problem that actually isn’t one. Just go ahead and use the name or pronoun again. It’ll be good.

[roane72]

Someone finally spelled out the REASON for using epithets, and the reasons NOT to.

[futureevilscientist]

In addition to that:

If the character you are referring to in such a way is THE VIEWPOINT CHARACTER, likewise, don’t do it. I.e. if you’re writing in third person but the narration is through their eyes, or what is also called “third person deep POV”. If the narration is filtered through the character’s perception, then a very external, impersonal description will be jarring. It’s the same, and just as bad, as writing “My bright blue eyes returned his gaze” in first person.

[cimness]

Furthermore, 

if the story is actually told through the eyes of one particular viewpoint character even though it’s in the third person, and in their voice, as is very often the case, then you shouldn’t refer to the characters in ways that character wouldn’t.

In other words, if the third-person narrator is Harry Potter, when Dumbledore appears, it says “Dumbledore appears”, not “Albus appears”. Bucky Barnes would think of Steve Rogers as “Steve”, where another character might think of him as “Cap”. Chekov might think of Kirk as “the captain”, but Bones thinks of him as “Jim”. 

Now, there are real situations where you, I, or anybody might think of another person as “the other man”, “the taller man”, or “the doctor”: usually when you don’t know their names, like when there are two tap-dancers and a ballerina in a routine and one of the men lifts the ballerina and then she reaches out and grabs the other man’s hand; or when there was a group of people talking at the hospital and they all worked there, but the doctor was the one who told them what to do. These are all perfectly natural and normal. Similarly, sometimes I think of my GP as “the doctor” even though I know her name, or one of my coworkers as “the taller man” even though I know his. But I definitely never think of my long-term life partner as “the green-eyed woman” or one of my best friends as “the taller person” or anything like that. It’s not a sensible adjective for your brain to choose in that situation - it’s too impersonal for someone you’re so intimately acquainted with. Also, even if someone was having a one night stand or a drunken hookup with a stranger, they probably wouldn’t think of that person as “the other man”: you only think of ‘other’ when you’re distinguishing two things and you don’t have to go to any special effort to distinguish your partner from yourself to yourself.

[undertailsoulsex]

This is something that I pretty consistently have to advise for those I beta edit for.  (It doesn’t help that I relied on epithets a lot in the earlier sections of my main fic because I was getting into the swing of things.)  I am reblogging this so fanfic writers can use this as a reference.

A good rule of thumb: a character’s familiarity with another character decreases the need for an epithet (and most times you really don’t need one at all).

[rehlia]

Good writing advice.

[vitxt]

day five: pictures

“Found these while I was unpacking earlier,” Parker says, lifting a small box onto the table where Adlai is chopping vegetables for dinner. They raise an eyebrow at Parker, setting aside their knife as Parker opens the box. Inside are photos, old polaroids from Parker’s youth, from his time in New York, then pictures the two of them took together back in their college days. Adlai laughs slightly, leaning in close and squinting to see better -- they’ve misplaced their glasses again. Which is, by the way, making cutting vegetables a little bit of a harrowing experience.

“You were a looker back then,” Adlai says calmly, looking between Parker’s hands. “So was I, actually.” They lean back and keep chopping.

Parker laughs quietly. The pictures with the two of them, those are fine. The ones where he’s younger are a little harder to look at, and it shows on his face. Adlai furrows their brow and goes to the sink to rinse off their hands. They pluck one from New York out of Parker’s hands and set it back in the box. Then they lift Parker’s hand to their mouth and brush their lips across Parker’s knuckles.

“You’re still handsome,” they decide, and let go just as quickly as they picked it up. They return to the vegetables. “Now put those away and help with dinner.”

Parker leans forward and presses a kiss to Adlai’s cheek. “You left your glasses in the bedroom again,” he says. “You want those?”

[vitxt]

day four: graveyard/coffin (death of a loved one)

She’s crying.

It’s to be expected.

Thalia clings tight to Zog’s hand with her left hand, clings to her brother’s hand with her right. She hasn’t felt this lost in such a long time, not since she lost her parents, and she thinks this one might hurt worse. Anemone had always been there, had been a rock, an anchor, and a lighthouse all in one.

It isn’t raining like it should be, like it is in the movies, when they lower Anemone’s casket. (Nothing about this is like it should be. Good people shouldn’t die.)

It’s Zog that will pull her out of it later, pull her kicking and screaming. “People die all the time, Thalia,” they say, and their voice is chipper as it ever is. Thalia withdraws from where she lays on their chest, wetting the rough fabric of their black shirt. She beats her fist against the bed.

“I don’t want to hear it.”

“Good people die all the time. Everybody dies.”

“I don’t want to hear it!”

“It’s natural.”

“Shut up!”

She rolls onto her side, buries her face in her hands. It’s a moment before Zog speaks again, and they place their calloused hand on her shoulder.

“We’re supposed to fight harder because of that, right? You and Emmy say that.”

Still too chipper, too upbeat.

But it grounds her.

Not a rock, not an anchor, not a lighthouse, but however weak, a tether.

[vitxt]

day three: future

It takes them both too long to think about the future, to really think about it. Their lives have orbited each other for so long, it’s only rational that they’ll continue to do so, but neither of them think about it.

It’s to be expected of Robin, who lives by the skin of his teeth, who was always going to be an artist, who went to law school on a whim. It’s stranger for Victor. He thinks about everything, has plans and dates laid out for the most minute details. It could be that that’s why it takes him longer to come to that conclusion, that idea of a future. He hadn’t planned for that. It takes him time to adapt.

So Robin realizes first that he wants to spend his life with Victor. It still takes him a long time. They’ve been together -- functioning, cohabitating, helping each other when they feel broken -- for five years when it dawns on him like the first rays of sunlight. Victor falls asleep at the kitchen table again, working on cases, and that’s when Robin knows. He doesn’t wake Victor. He knows at this point it’s better just to let him sleep there. If he wakes him up, he’ll just want to keep working. He won’t come to bed. So Robin sits down at the table across from him and watches him for a long few minutes, the hunch of his usually stiff back, the movements of his breathing. He takes the pen from Victor’s hand and a sheet from the legal pad laying nearby and he sketches. He’s rusty, but it isn’t bad. He realizes then, as he compares real life and his drawing. He loves Victor, and of course he’s known that for years, but something about this, so intimate and simple, tugs on his heart in a way he knows he’ll never escape, even if he wanted to. He fetches Victor’s favorite blanket and wraps it around his shoulders before going to bed himself.

It takes Victor longer to realize, and of course, they’re in court. They’re on opposing sides again, and Robin has his brow furrowed, his fists clenched. He’s almost backed into a corner, and Victor can see the gears turning in his mind. He’s obvious like that, not subtle like Victor is -- like he tries to be, at any rate. Victor sees Robin there, how hard he’s working, how much he believes in his client, and his realization is like a bolt of lightning. It’s a eureka moment, he thinks later, or a punch in the gut, and it’s all he can do to hold it together until the trial is over. When they leave the courthouse, he stares at Robin, who always looks so energized after a win, and he knows he wants to see him after every victory. Even if it’s against him.

Robin will be the one who asks, in one of only a few moments in his life of meticulous planning. They will have discussed it beforehand, because Robin knows Victor hates surprises like that. There will be a perfectly timed swell of music, and Robin will be on bended knee, and of course, Victor will say yes.

They’ll make their future together.

[vitxt]

day two: love

The song reverberates in her chest. She can only hear it distantly. It makes the world around her seem rosy, like some filtered light is shining over her skin and the walls, painting everything the softest pink. She pulls the blanket further up, tucking it underneath her chin. When she looks at her phone it’s with such terrible fondness, soft eyes, hands curled around it gently like they might curl in someone else’s hand. If the song reverberates the text tone overwhelms, fills the senses with joy before she even reads the message.

[vitxt]

day one: flowers (abuse implied, violent imagery, body horror) (this is utena fanfiction, essentially)

She plants a garden in his chest.

There had been one on her skin for years, blossoms spreading out over flesh, vines as their scars, red and purple and angry and ugly. It grew easily where he placed his hands, petals blooming and withering over weeks, hidden under clothes, never seeing the sun. She’d closed her eyes to them, ignored their growth, smiled as the roots grew deeper and deeper into her body. The inside decomposed to feed the blooms until she was only a rose.

One day, a girl came into view. There were no flowers inside of her, none growing from her skin. In the garden of time she was barely a seedling, and she didn’t stay for long. But while she was there she took a petal from the rose, and soon it shed the rest; petals fell to the ground and left nothing but a stem, and from its core she fell out.

Now the rose is a girl again, and she plucks the last seed from her body and tucks it between his ribs. Roots take hold and vines spread out slowly, creeping through his ribcage. Thorns puncture his lungs. Brambles constrict his heart. It isn’t long before he’s torn apart.

She leaves gardens behind and goes to find the girl without flowers.